Honey analysis can be important to determine characteristics of honey such as honey plant or botanical origin, honey contamination and honey that has been processed in ways that influence the purported activity. Determining honey plant origin is of particular interest for quality control purposes e.g. for determining medical grade high activity honey from those with less medical activity. Reassurance of origin is also important as the value of some honeys e.g. manuka honey, may be markedly higher than that of other honey types.
Measuring plant origin characteristics can be difficult, particularly as there are many different measures that can be analysed to measure honey quality. In addition, many of the existing tests can take 24 hours or more before the results are obtained. This delay in receiving results can impact on processing by delaying blending operations and delaying quality control inspections, both of which may impact on processing costs.
It is known that honey will fluoresce. This is understood to be due to the presence of aromatic compounds in the honey (mainly phenolic compounds) that may be excited by light and that then emit light in response to the excitation. One prior art patent publication, WO 2010/027286A1 uses the property of fluorescence to analyse honey but only measures the result using two parameters meaning that much of the valuable characteristic finger print fluorescence of a honey is not visible. This therefore results in incorrect readings or the potential of not obtaining a valid result.
It should be appreciated from the above that it would be useful to have a method and apparatus for at least measuring plant origin characteristics of honey. In particular, a faster method than that of present methods would be useful.
It is acknowledged that the term ‘comprise’ and grammatical variations thereof may, under varying jurisdictions, be attributed with either an exclusive or an inclusive meaning. For the purpose of this specification, and unless otherwise noted, the term ‘comprise’ shall have an inclusive meaning.
Further aspects and advantages of the presently described devices and methods will become apparent from the ensuing description that is given by way of example only.